When Suing A Website For Libel, It Helps To Actually Sue The Right One

from the thedirt-vs.-thedirty dept

Last week, a story caught my eye, about a website being ordered to pay $11 million for failing to respond to a lawsuit claiming libel. The story caught my attention for a few reasons: first, I'm always interested in libel lawsuits involving blogs and second... the name of the site that was sued was TheDirt.com, which... er... seemed close enough to Techdirt.com that I had to pause for a second and make sure it wasn't us. Anyway, after all that, it didn't seem like the ruling was interesting enough for a post... until some other details came out.

The lawsuit itself came from a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader/high school English teacher named Sarah Jones, who was upset that the site in question apparently posted a picture of her and reported that she had an affair with a player and had contracted two venereal diseases. Assuming there's no truth to the rumors, it sounded like a straightforward libel case -- though from all the reporting, it's not clear if the site owners themselves wrote the content, or if it was written by a user -- in which case the site might have Section 230 protections (potentially depending on how involved they were in encouraging such content).

So why is the case suddenly interesting? Well, perhaps because it now appears that Ms. Jones' lawyers sued the wrong company. Oops. The lawsuit was filed against Los Angeles-based Dirty World Entertainment Recordings, which runs the website TheDirt.com. Problem is that the site that contained the content in question was TheDirty.com, and that's run by a Scottsdale-based company called Dirty World LLC who had no indication that there was a lawsuit going on at all. Oops indeed. At least no one sued us.

Amusingly, the folks at TheDirt.com are amusingly asking if they should sue for libel right back, considering all the press coverage claiming (falsely) that they had libeled Ms. Jones. Oh, and as for TheDirty.com, it's also asking the AP for an apology for falsely reporting that it had lost the lawsuit when it hadn't even been served. Quite a dirty mess. Separately, I have to imagine that Jones' lawyer, Eric Deters, now regrets his statement to the AP:

"If they would have just taken it down, this all would have been over," Deters said. "They just kind of mocked the whole court system."

Wow, um, an image search for Sarah Jones does not bode well for her future reputation, at least with safesearch turned off. Not that I'm implying Sarah jones prefers full nudity with her students and posting the pictures online.

Re: Cheap Cars

Money back guarantee?

I hope she got a money back guarantee from the lawyer. I would sure hate to pay for a lawsuit against the wrong person/company and then have to pay for another lawsuit against the right person/company.

I wonder which came first, the Dirty World that runs thedirt.com or the Dirty World that runs thedirty.com. This sounds like pretty good evidence of a likelihood of confusion. I smell a trademark suit.

Re:

Re: Why

The post seemed to indicate that they weren't even served. The article does not indicate who was served but only who wasn't served the required summons.

The problem here is one company was Los Angeles, California based and the other was Scottsdale, Arizona based. It's a matter of jurisdiction as well.

Not only is her attorney an idiot, but he placed himself vulnerable to a malpractice suit by her. This attorney broke the first rule of being a jurist, always double-check your paperwork, as there is no such thing as a typo under the law. One typo can ruin a case.

As to the Associated Press' incompetence. This isn't the first time the AP has not checked its facts (or lack thereof) before reporting a story. A simple followup would have prevented their story from ever being published as it was, but it would not have made for good tabloid press; you know instead of that yucky "journalistic integrity" thing.

Insults

From the Politico piece linked above:

The next day, Bertelsman ruled against Dirty World Entertainment Recordings. Kentucky attorney Eric Deters, who is representing Jones, said it was irrelevant that the incorrect corporation, website and physical address were listed on the complaint and judgment.

"We’re still going to serve that S.O.B. personally," Deters said of Richie. "I’m going to make that dirty, rotten, mean, vermin bastard pay. He’s a piece of dirt."

So, a dirty, rotten, mean, vermin bastard piece of dirt SOB? I guess when you screw the pooch as badly as this lawyer did, hurling insults at the other guy is a good way to draw attention away from your royal fuckup.

Also:

“He ought to be ashamed of himself,” Deters said “He’s another lying little weasel politician. That’s not slander; that is my opinion.”

0
Boy. It takes a lawyer to know how to [kind of] slander somebody without actually being guilty of slander.

Some of those later URLs are websensed... For SEX!

You should mention that the comment you link to is on a sex site, and NSFW... I stupidly clicked it to see the guy's statement, and Websense blocked it as a sex site. I almost had a heart attack! It's a good thing my network admin has a sense of humor!

Hahaha

Typical Court Favoritism in Femerica

Another golddigging American woman. Men should be able to sue for slander and libel too knowing the crap women spew about them. Typical Femerica brainwashees. No surprise considering the courts are the fanbase which supports your typical Femerica goldigging feminazis. The sad part is that all those statements are true about her

Hooman Karamian may have ownership in THEDIRT.COM, so ATTY Deters may not have been far off the mark.

THEDIRT.COM has been registered since 2002, protected by GoDaddy’s “Domain by Proxy” service that hides true owner information. This is the same service Hooman Karamian utilizes in his solutions. An IT records check (with registrar GoDaddy or hosting provider MOJO) would ultimately provide evidence or possibly link ownership of the domains.

leveling the playing field

How to sue a website

Hello,

I don't know how to ask but the issue is I have visiting a website where I found some guy selling the T-shirts with the pics of our goddess. The pictures were vulgar and kind of porn views. I don't knoe how to SUE this GUY PLEASE HELP.

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Web Privacy Buys You Nothing

One of the biggest scams from web hosting companies is their privacy protection services. If you pay for the service you really aren't gaining any real protection. At the first sign of trouble they are willing to give up your personal information.